5 Books Published by Red Phoenix Books on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

What if you moved the great battle of Agincourt forward 500 years? You’d have … WW1. So, not 500 years, let’s say 490 years. It is a time of great technological advances, but it is still the Age of Steam. Weapons of war include rifles, airships, and the precursor to the tank, the French Levavasseur. But human beings are still the same. This adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V asks the question: Can an English soldier-general with the tactical skill of Ulysses S. Grant, successfully cast his army against a technically superior force on a rain-drenched battle field in France?

It is 1892. Queen Victoria is on the English throne. But the American civil war was never fought, and the Louisiana Purchase was never made. English-speaking USA shares the North American continent with French Louisiana, and Spanish Mexico. In Haiti, ever slavery-free, Mr Camillo “Cam” Deuberry, a vintner by trade, and wine concierge to the king, longs to be free of his tyrannical boss Leontes (Leo). Leo is not only cacique of the small island, an historical cultural title descended from its original Native American inhabitants, but also King. When Leo threatens the life of the Governor-General of Louisiana, Deuberry suspects voodoo is involved. But when, in a fit of rage, Leo orders Cam to do it, Cam is faced with a stark choice, follow his king in a mad, paranoid dream, or risk his freedom, travel to the slave-holding USA, and take up residence in New Orleans. Leo’s rage doesn’t stop with the Governor-General of Louisiana. Leo next sets his sights on his pregnant, mulatto wife, and draws more of his closest advisors into his murderous schemes. Voodoo priestess, Paulina, must use all her skill not only to unearth the sorcerous scourge that has set all the rage in motion, but find a possible solution. Paulina’s husband, must face the character defining choices of murdering a child, abandoning his wife, or disobeying a direct order from his king. A steampunk adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, a family story that spans twenty years, set in Haiti and New Orleans in 1892.

This is a story of how a jellyfish gained a spine! Jellyfish Baron Pudgy (technically an invertebrate of the Kimbrella family) happily bides his time, courting the chatty and fashionable Dame Edith (technically an invertebrate of the Crinoid family), on an outcropping of continent Rodinia, 500 million years ago (just before the explosion of vertebrate life in the Pre-Cambrian era). His companions, all invertebrates, find their sports and entertainments ruined by an environmental disaster perpetrated by the mysterious Limers! Even famed mad scientist, Dr. Anem One, cannot deduce the designs of these dastardly opportunists, who dump acid and calcium solids into the world oceans. When the Limer gang, with their environmental acids, ruin the complexion of the lovely Dame Edith, Baron Pudgy knows he must take matters into his own hands … er filia. A true story of survival in the face of disaster, with a nod to the classic short story A Clockwork Orange.